The
race for Congress in Iowa's First District is already bordering on
the ridiculous - with the national Republican party trying to tag
Bruce Braley as a Communist, for instance - so why not throw a
pirate into the mix?

James
Hill is a 42-year-old Eldridge resident who will appear on the ballot
as a Pirate. Not as a member of the Pirate Party, mind you, but as a
pirate. He is as coarse and unpolished as that tag would suggest,
with bushy red sideburns and a mustache that make him look like a
biker.

He's
astute, too. Hill understands that ideas and hard work will only get
an independent candidate so far. You need a gimmick. "Publicity
costs a heck of a lot of money," Hill said. "Notoriety's free."

And
a lot of people who meet him will find him a compelling voice for
their dissatisfaction with contemporary American politics.

"The
power of the two political parties has reached critical mass," he
said. "There's almost ... no voices left in the middle. And I
think that's somewhat dangerous to democracy ... . Eventually the
party power will overrule any judgments that are for the benefit of
democracy or the republic itself."

Hill
said that a major problem with Congress is that the legislative
process has been corrupted. Last-minute pork gets added, and
unrelated amendments bog down bills. Lawmakers often don't even
know what's in legislation, he said, and they certainly don't
read it.

Money
is the poison, Hill said. He doesn't accept any - from anybody.
He wants to outlaw lobbying. When asked about the likelihood of the
Supreme Court ruling any such law an unconstitutional restriction on
political speech, he replied, "At the end of the day, we have to
make the damn statement."

Hill
doesn't have a detailed platform, but he does believe some things
strongly. "It is wrong to let children go hungry," he said, and
social-welfare programs shouldn't be cut because some people abuse
them. "For every welfare queen they ever dug up, there were 50,000
people that really, really needed help."

For
the most part, though, Hill believes that vested financial interests
make it virtually impossible to distinguish truth from spin in
Washington; it is therefore difficult to truly understand the issues,
he said. "The more I tried to write an elaborate platform,
everything kept bringing me back to the money," he said. "It
sounds kind of chickenshit, but at the end of the day, it all goes
back to that. The information we get, the data we get out of our
House of Representatives, is so god-damned skewed, so twisted.
Without political reform, the rest of the issues are almost a moot
point."

He
plans to spend $4,500 on his campaign, and he's already spent
nearly $2,800, he said. His target is to get 10,000 votes on election
day.

Hill
supports full public funding of federal campaigns. Even if 12
candidates unaffiliated with any party get the necessary signatures
to be on the ballot, he said, they should all have access to the same
amount of money as Democrats and Republicans. That's the only way
to break the stranglehold of the major parties, he said: "I think
we need that for a while."

He
wants to curtail last-minute earmarking of legislation. He wants to
limit amendments to alterations directly related to a bill's
subject.

He
also doesn't take himself too seriously. "Albert Schoeman, the
other guy that is running as an independent, is probably an
infinitely smarter and better candidate than I am," Hill said. When
asked the potential impact of a Pirate win, he said, "One time, one
election cycle, is all it would really take. Nothing would send a
message to Washington like sending an idiot like me there."

And
some of his ideas are a little silly. "I want to put a damn Web cam
in my office," he said. "See when I'm at my desk."

But
the self-deprecating approach masks a left-leaning idealist who is
particularly articulate when talking about the way politics have been
professionalized. The American republic was meant to be a citizen
legislature, he said, and the people who set it up didn't
anticipate career politicians. To return that spirit, he said, he
wants to mandate attendance and lengthen sessions, to allow the full
vetting of legislation. "Why not attach real sacrifice to service
in the House?" he said. "Bring an element of service back to it."

A
1982 graduate of North Scott High School, Hill said he worked with
race horses for nearly a dozen years before starting with Safety
Kleen. An on-the-job injury in 2002 has kept him out work for the
past four years. (His Web site even includes an X-ray from his 2005
spinal surgery.)

The
injury was the genesis of his run for Congress. "Too much time on
my hands," he said. "A combination of that and too much
television. Watching the talking heads, the politicos on television
screaming over each other."

Hill's
political heroes are as disparate as John McCain, Jimmy Carter, and
Harold Hughes, and in them he sees a little of himself. "The guys
that have seemed to stay the straightest are the guys that actually
suffered a little at some point in their lives," he said. And after
his back injury, he dealt with depression. "I have two really good
things in common with Abraham Lincoln: depression, and I'm
hideously ugly."

Some
people will undoubtedly be turned off by some of his positions. He
opposes gun control, believes that abortion shouldn't be outlawed
unless there are workable, realistic policies in places to prevent
unwanted pregnancies and increase adoption, and wants to legalize
marijuana.

But
he believes that the culture of Congress can be changed, and that's
the driving force of his campaign. "Some of these are just simple
things," he said. "Lengthen the sessions. Strip down the bills.
Make 'em show up."

Support Third Party Candidateswritten by Michael Cotton,
October 13, 2006

When you are out voting for your next elected official, think about voting for that third party candidate. This country needs a third party...or a fourth or a fifth party...in order to get us away from "staying the course" as all the major party candidates want. The Dems and the Reps have created an insular little world out there in D.C. where they do not have to think about anything more than meeting with the lobby groups and attending parties. Many of them do not even vote on many of the bills. How can they do this? Because they know that when election time comes around, they will succeed in being reelected, barring any scandals or sometimes regardless of scandals, because they have used the system to make it very hard for a challenger by redrawing district lines and simply outspending challengers with all the special interest money they get. It is no longer a vote for ideas or values, but instead it is a vote for which marketing campaign is the slickest. Those third party candidates are actual people that have put their hats in the ring to try and make a difference. Americans should support that drive by actually voting for some of these candidates. Let's make it easier to get new voices and ideas in Congress. The more we as a people show we support third parties, the more third party candidates will step forward so that we have a real choice at election time. The more people we have who are not corrupted by the D.C. system, the more chance we have of righting some of the wrongs that we all complain about whether we are Dems or Reps. Third parties can only make our Democracy stronger. Remember, this country is only one party away from Fascism.